Time Everlastin' Book 5 (13 page)

He wanted to dance among
them. His muscles twitched to the cadence. Still, he remained
motionless. Wealth and merriment surrounded him, while food
beckoned him to partake of their sinful offerings. Every smell and
sound was real. The air currents prompted by the dancers, was real.
He wanted the food and the ale, and a partner to spin across the
floor. More than anything he had wanted in a very long time, he
wanted—needed—to be a part of the people.

It didn't matter that they
laughed at him. That they poked him. That someone had tied his
wrists behind him, and that someone else had tightly wrapped twine
around his ankles.

Neither the discomfort nor
the ridicule mattered a wit, not considering the machinations of
whatever part of his brain was creating the dream.

It did matter that he stood
among these strangers, not only naked but cleanly shaven from head
to toe. He was as hairless as a rock. Exposed unmercifully. So
white-clean his skin hurt.

He understood why his mind
was enacting this part of the dream, but not even his mind could
shame him. Like his bald, naked self in the dream, he was powerless
to slay his enemy. Powerless to alter the path destiny had so
cruelly and decisively put him upon.

Hands shoved him to the
floor. Hands gripped the vines and dragged him across dirt and
rock, grunts and laughter echoing around him.

Then dancers, sounds and
odors vanished. Rolling onto his back, he saw a woman standing ten
feet across from him, her long reddish blond hair transforming into
serpents snapping at the air. Her tawny eyes stared through him,
stripping him to his soul. She was dressed in brightly colored,
oversized leaves. In one hand she held a wooden bucket, the other a
chimney brush.

"Hey, barbarian," she said
in an echoing taunt. "Ready for the scrubbing of your
life?"

He woke with a start, his
heart pounding, his breathing erratic. The leaf bed beneath him
felt harder than usual. His muscles were achy and too stiff to roll
him off his front. Something had died inside his dry mouth, and he
ran his tongue along the grittiness coating his teeth.

With a grunt, he moved to
roll onto his side, only he hadn't moved at all. Now that his mind
was fully alert, he realized that he couldn't move his hands or
feet.

"Games, ye godless worm?" he
growled, struggling fiercely to free his limbs. "I'll eat yer
liver! Ye hear me? Wi' ma bare hands, I'll rip it—"

"My...my," a feminine voice
chuckled. "Someone wake up on the wrong side of a
frond?"

His teeth locked painfully,
he cranked his head around to locate her. She stood close to his
feet, as smug as the beast, himself. It didn't pass his notice that
she was wearing one of the shirts he'd unwrapped some time ago. One
of the gifts from above. How she came to be in possession of it
didn't matter.

No’ yet.

"Untie me!" he
growled.

Her eyebrows lifted in a
mocking challenge. "Are you talking to me?"

"Lass!"

"After all my exertion to
drag you out here?" She sighed dramatically. "You really are an
ungrateful brute."

Drag me...?

He blinked hard to dispel
the red haze over his eyes. She had hauled him from his chamber?
How had she even found it, so far from her own?

Two arm-lengths away was his
pool. The one he refused to use. How had she dragged him from his
chamber to the pool without waking him?

He cast all thought from his
mind when she began to hum. She had a fair voice, but he was more
interested in why she was kneeling at the pool and filling a bowl
with water. By the time a suspicion fully invaded his awareness,
she stood over him. The smug grin she wore told him more than he
wanted to know.

"I'm warnin' ye," he said,
his voice husky. "Return to yer chamber and I'll forget ye violated
ma person."

She winced playfully.
"You're a walking violation, mister. But I'm about to make my
day."

She was suddenly astride his
back, her unexpected weight pushing the air from his lungs. A
stream of Gaelic invectives boomed from him but became a garbled
ball in his throat when she plopped something on his head and
roughly worked her fingers into his hair.

The foam pods! "Off me!" he
bellowed and attempted to buck her off his back. Her thighs
squeezed his ribs tighter. "Curse ye! Stop afore I—"

"Oh...shut...up," she
crooned, and swiped a sudsy hand across his mouth.

Sputtering and spitting out
the bitter-tasting foam, he squirmed with more force.

"Let's see how prettily you
clean up, big guy," she laughed. "Almost done with the
hair."

He couldn't believe her
tenacity. Protests died in his throat while she proceeded to scrub
every part of him, including his bare buttocks, the cheeks of which
clenched painfully in protest. Never had he encountered such
brazenness in a woman. She continued to hum, drumming into him the
extent of her pleasure at his displeasure. His hair, his skin and
his clothing were at her mercy, and the woman had none.

When his back length was
coated with sudsy slime, she forced him onto his side, keeping
herself positioned behind him.

Her soaped hands scrubbed
his face and beard despite the fact he tried to bite
her.

"Be nice," she chirped each
time.

Nice be damned!
he fumed.

His brain bordered on
eruption when she slipped a hand beneath his kilt and boldly washed
his thighs, close to his genitals. Mortification and a rapidly
building sense of pleasure warred behind his chest. He willed back
his growing erection, to no avail. He could do no more than glower
at her, although, not once had she looked into his eyes.

"Ye will pay dearly for
this, ye—"

He gagged when her fingers
swiftly darted into his mouth, coating his tongue with the slime,
and slipped out before he could react. Gagging again then spitting,
he cried, "Damn ye! I'll choke the life ou' o' ye when
I'm—"

He sucked in a breath, his
eyes widened on her in disbelief. One of her hands cupped his
testicles, massaging, taunting.
Threatening
. She met his gaze, her
face expressionless, her breathing far steadier than his own. When
her fingers curled around his treacherous erection, he gulped
convulsively.

"You're a lot of man to be
acting so childishly," she said matter-of-factly. "Don't you think
it's a wee pathetic that you smell and look better covered in green
slime?"

Releasing him, she returned
to the pool, where she rinsed her hands and again filled the bowl
with water. She cast him a pensive look as she returned to his
side.

"What's your
name?"

"Ye shameless—"

Her fingers curled around
his shaft and his teeth sank into his lower lip, drawing blood.
Stroke. Stroke. He shuddered in blissful torment, her hands deftly
massaging him and throwing his mind into consternation.

"That's an odd name," she
said cheerily. The hand applying soap to his testicles joined the
other, each sliding up and down. He shuddered more fiercely when
her soft palm glided over the head of his penis, and it was all he
could do to hold back his seed.

"Okay, Mr. Ye, let's get you
rinsed."

"No!"

"Oh, get a grip," she
chided.

"Around yer scrawny
neck!"

"In your dreams, sweetie."
She glanced at the bowl in her hand, then at him again. "This won't
do. Guess you'll have to rinse in the pool."

Horrified, he stared at the
glowing blue surface. "I-I canna swim."

"Fortunately for you, I can.
Actually, big guy, I'm pretty damn strong, but I don't recommend
you struggle too much. It would be terrible if you accidentally
drowned."

She faked an exaggerated
shudder. "The waterless wonder, drowning. The thought sends chills
through me."

"Think abou' wha' yer doin'
and the repercussions tha' will come to follow," he said in a low,
threatening tone.

"Maybe I will. If you tell
me your name."

He considered refusing.
Instead, he said grudgingly, "Broc."

"Liar."

Stroke. Stroke.

He couldn't stop animal
sounds from leaving his throat. "No proper womon—Och! Sweet Gawd!"
he mewled when her hand glided down the length of his shaft. "Ma
name is Broc!" he gasped, and whimpered in relief when she released
him.

"Okay." She stood and
positioned herself at his back. "Whether it is or isn't, I lied.
You're going for the dunking of your life."

To his disbelief, she
gripped the vines cocooning his shoulders and inched him toward the
pool.

"Leave me be, ye daft
wench!"

"That was rude." Puffing
from the exertion of dragging him, Taryn added, "I suggest you stop
squirming. You're dampening my sunny disposition."

"Ye're no' thinkin', lass,"
he said through clenched teeth.

She positioned him
lengthwise next to the pool and crouched with her knees to his
chest. The dark eyes glowering at her through the soap-slicked
strands of hair glued to his face, sent a chill of familiarity up
her spine.

A thought popped into her
mind. Shaking her head to dispel it, she said, "You know, when I
get out of here, I can make a fortune marketing these goo pods. I
didn't think anything in the world could cut through your filth—not
to mention your unmentionable stench."

He growled a series of
Gaelic words.

"Are you swearing at me?"
she asked innocently.

"When I get
free...."

"Ahhh." She smiled prettily
then jabbed her index finger at his brow. "When is in the hands of
Fate, my friend. Cooperate, and you can be on your merry way in no
time at all. Keep fussing like an ass and...well, this could take a
while."

A nonsensical growl rumbled
in his chest.

"Just what the hell do you
have against water? How can you live with yourself? Besides those
potatoes between your ears, what else are you trying to
grow?"

"Free me."

The deep, liquidy sound of
his voice struck her funny bone. "Or what? You'll breathe on me?"
She sighed theatrically. "I'm doing this for your own good. Take it
like a man."

Slipping her left palm
beneath several of the vines spanning his chest, she tested her
grip. "Take a deep breath."

His mouth opened but snapped
shut when she pushed hard against his raised shoulder. She went
down on her knees at the same time he rolled over and into the
water, causing a wave large enough to soak her thoroughly.
Unintelligible words shrieked at her as he fought each dunking,
flapping like a hooked king fish.

His actions compounded his
weight. Her left arm ached beneath the strain to keep him afloat.
Her knees were ground into the rock. Her hips and calves cramped.
Regardless, each time she yanked him to the surface, she scrubbed
at him with her right palm.

Dunk. Surface. Dunk.
Surface.

The pod-soap rinsed from his
head, hair, beard, neck and shoulders, she hoisted him up and
targeted his shoulders and chest. He had quieted to an occasional
thrash, his exhaustion equaling her own. Regrets nipped at her
resolve to see his bathing through. Pain gripped her lower back,
and she had lost all feeling in her left hand. She swept aside the
thick wavy strands of his beard, and allowed her mind to drift.
Tiny, iridescent bubbles crowned the now murky water. The beautiful
clarity of the pool was no more.

The barbarian had polluted
it.

Dunk. Surface.

She recalled a time when she
was four, when her brother had reluctantly agreed to watch her
while their parents took in a play at a local theater. Taryn was
particularly difficult that night. It wasn't often she had Roan to
herself, and Roan wasn't known for his patience, even back then.
The highlight of her tormenting him was during her bath. Not only
had she drenched him but eaten part of the soap, inducing
vomiting.

Poor, Roan,
she mused.
You didn't know
whether to spank me or haul me to the hospital. Mom and Dad were so
furious with you. I wanted to tell them it wasn't your fault. I
really did, Roan. I wish I had.

Jerking back to the present,
she said, "I think we've both had enough—"

Her heart shot into her
throat. She gaped at her empty left hand. Wiggled the fingers.
Flexed the fingers. Blinking hard, she stared at the water, her
mind churning aimlessly to lock on to a viable explanation. When
reason slammed home, she released a cry and dove into the
pool.

Below the floating muck, the
water was clear and blue. Far below her, the barbarian sank deeper
and deeper, his air bubbles rising in rapid succession. Taryn
pumped her arms and legs. Her heart painfully thundering, her mind
incapable of producing a complete thought, she kept her gaze locked
on him. She had always believed herself a strong swimmer. Yet, the
harder she pushed herself downward, the farther away he
sank.